Serco has been awarded a £31 million contract extension by the Ministry of Defence to continue providing support services at RAF Brize Norton, according to a press release.
The two-year extension follows the original three-year Brize Support Contract (BSC), which Serco secured in December 2021 through a competitive process.
Under the contract, Serco delivers a range of logistical, engineering, and airfield services at the base, which is the largest RAF air station in the UK.
The company has been involved at RAF Brize Norton for over 25 years, and the contract employs more than 380 people, including over 160 ex-Service personnel.
Doug Umbers, Managing Director of Serco’s UK defence business, commented on the extension, saying, “Serco is delighted to have the opportunity to continue to support the RAF at Brize for another two years. Our team at the airfield works closely with the RAF in a Whole Force Approach, and the contract allows the release of invaluable RAF personnel back to front line duties.”
RAF Brize Norton, with a personnel strength of over 7,000, is central to the RAF’s Strategic and Tactical Air Transport (AT) and Air-to-Air Refuelling (AAR) capabilities.
The base supports global mobility for UK overseas operations and provides AAR support for fast-jet aircraft involved in operations and homeland defence.
Hmmme
Saves a few quid (maybe?) presumably on pensions but IRL this means what for deployment or depth?
Half are ex RAF so RAF paid for their training anyway.
What happens if commercial aviation pay rates pick up…..this could get expensive……or the roles go unfilled….?
You do know that they have been doing this for around 40 years?
Yes, I do.
Still doesn’t make the boys’n’girls deployable?
If it was salary the x RAF guys would have left years ago. They are quite happy with the convenience.
I remember a 90,000 RAF.
So many support roles have been privatised along side the wholesale cuts.
On deployment, major RAF Stations have an EAW comprised of personnel from that stations varied wings.
It must be more expensive to contract everything out like this.
Far, FAR cheaper. You pay for the service delivered, you do not pay for staff, recruiting, equipment, equipment maintenance, housing, food, clothing etc etc etc. And they have not contracted out everything, not by a long way.
No, that’s true, RAF Stations have wings, as I mentioned above.
I don’t know the balance between uniformed and contractor staff each station though.
Contrary to belief, contracting out is more expensive in the long run, than keeping things in-house. Everything that you mentioned as savings, is just the sales pitch.
Also keeping things in house, keeps control of what is going on.
The first consideration when a contractor bids is maximising ring fencing a clear profit, before actual delivery of the sevice & further down the scale, keeping wages as low as possible. So there’s usually a mark up for the contractors to profit mine the public purse, often delivering as shoddy a service as they can get away with.
I hope Serco are being far more helpful & effficient, but the whole privatisation/contracting out dogma pushed since the late1970s-80s was a lie.
I know how contracts and contracting work. I have done both.
I remember reading an article from a financial mergers and acquisition expert who statistically noted that using contractors was very expensive and bad for the business in long term .
The costs are high financially and structurally . Tendering out for contract Also allows for legalised corruption .
Speaking from my own experience, I’ve just completed a project moving the dispatch arm of an online direct to customer business over to a third party contractor. The immediate saving is around 30% of operational costs for the company, and will actually increase over the next five years.
Depending on the situation and service being contracted out, it can definitely be a cheaper solution.
I’m sure Serco used to empty my bins some years ago…
I think they feed immigrants as well..
They have many Fingers in many Pies 👇.
I suspect that the contract extension was signed off because DE&S / DIO hadn’t started to sort out a new completion in time.